On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 22:25:32 GMT, WaIIy
wrote:

On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:01:04 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

I'm contemplating an early spring, west to east, trip the length of Lake
Erie to deliver a 32 foot sailboat. It's a reasonably capable boat. It was
designed for Caribbean sailing and sister ships have made trips such as from
Australia to England. I have a fair amount of ocean sailing experience but
I grew up near the shore of Lake Erie and heard the "It's much worse than
the ocean." comment many times.

I expect you will have little difficulty if you pick a reasonable
weather window with nothing threatening and the prevailing westerly
behind you. We delivered a 27 footer the length of the lake in October
with the wind rising from about 10 to 25 over the course of a 38 hour
run.

The whole lake is shallow and the waves tend to be close together and
square shaped. There will be more motion and more steering attention
required than you may be used to. There's very few places to run to on
the north side, so you may want to stay a little south if the weather
looks unsettled. The water will be very cold, with all the attendent
dangers.

I find it kind of entertaining that I have concerns the other way
round about ocean sailing, since most of my experience is from the
east end of Lake Ontario.

Ryk